Ethnicity and identity: sociology culture and identity topic 4

Sociology: Culture & Identity

1. Topic 4 - Ethnicity and identity

   • Key term: Ethnicity refers to the shared culture of a social group which gives its members a common identity in some ways different from that of other social groups.
   • Key term: A minority ethnic group is a social group that shares a cultural identity which is different from that of the majoriry population of a society.
   • What is meant by an ethnic identity?
     • Key term: The white mask refers to the idea of non-white minority ethnic groups seeking to overcome prejudice and racism and gain acceptance in white society by playing down their own ethnicity and culture, and adopting the features ('the white mask') of majority white culture.
     • An ethnic identity is one in which individuals assert their identity primariy in terms of the ethnic group and culture to which they belong. Ethnic identity is formed and transmitted from one generation to the next by agencies of socialisation, such as the family, peer group, religious instituations, education and the mass media.
       • Study: Anwar (1998) and Ghuman (1999) found that South Asian families emphasized the values of family obligation and loyalty, and a commitment to their religion, which they sought to insil in their children during thr socialisation process.
     • The education system may reinforce ethnic identities either reinforce ethnic identities either through the establishment of ethnic-based religious scholling, such as Muslim or Sikh schools, or through the effects of racism in mainstream schools.
       • Study: Sewell (1998) found that black identities were reinforced as young black students coped with racist teacher stereotypes of 'black machismo' by forming peer group - related black school subcultures - an example of how both the experience of education and the peer group can reinforce ethnic identities.
         • Study: Sewell (1996) found many aspects of the macho black identity of young African Caribbeans were derived from the mass media. The global media, through satellite TV,DVDs and the internet, also enable minority ethnic communities to draw on the cultures in their countries of origin. Bhangra music and Bollywood films in South Asian communities might be an example.
     • Religion is often an important socialising agent in mionority ethnic communities, and, as Jacobson (1998) found, Islam, particularly, has become of growing significance as a source of identity among some young British Pakistani Asians, partly as a response to the social exclusion, racism and lack of opportunity they encounter in Britisg society.
     • Sources of ethnic identity drawn on during the socialisation process might include values, beliefs, traditions, geographical and cultural origins, a shared history, language, music, diet, dress, religious ideas, and experiences of racism and discrimination. These shape ethnic identities, give them meaning and provide a sense of self-identity, of cultural disinctiveness and of belonging with others like themselves.
     • Ethnicity is just one identity, and individuals can adopt more than one identity depending on the social context in which they find themselve. For example, British Asians may have multiple identites, adopting an Asian identity at home, what Fanon (2008 [1952]) called a 'white mask' identity at school or in other situations, and another identity as very fashionable, with designer gear and awesome muscial tastes and so on, in their leisure and consumption patterns. These multiple identities, sometimes merging into 'hybrid'identities help to fit into the different communitites and social groups in which they find themselves.
   • Diaspora and globalisation
     • Key term: Diaspora is the dispersal of an ethnic population from its original homeland, and its spreading out across the world, while retaining cultural and emotional ties to its area or nation of origin.
     • Key term: A hybrid identity is a new identity formed from a mix of two or more other identities.
     • Diaspora suggests that a dispersed ethnic population adopts two ore more ethnic identities: it will retain some links to its original culutre and heritage, while also adopting elements of the culture of the host societies in which individuals now live, and will manoeuvre between them.
       • Example: The Sikh community in Britain maintain close links with family and culture in the Punjab region of India, speaking Punjabi and observing Sikh customs at home, and speaking English and adopting what may be radically different peer-group values and norms at school or college.
     • Globalisation, including the impact of the global mass media and popular culture, also means the cultures may be beginning to lose their separate identities. With diasopras and globalisation, different cultures interact, and new cultural and ethnic hybrid identities emerge, formed from a mix of other identities.
       • Example: the diaspora created by the centuries of slavery, and the mass emigration in the 1950s and 1960s from the Caribben and the Indian subcontinent, means that black and Asian populatoins are now dispersed around the globe, and in Britain new ethnic identities like British Asian, Brasian, Black British and Muslim British have emerged.
     • Some minority ethnic people may adopt a 'white mask' as part of their identity, as a means of 'fitting in' in social situations and gaining acceptance in groups and communities which they might otherwise find difficult to achieve.
   • Changing ethnic identities: New ethnicities and hybrid ethnic identities
     • Study: Hall (1992) suggests that ethnic identities are becoming harder to idrntify, with globalisation and diasporas merging cultures and creating 'new ethnicities'. For example, African caribbean music and dress are now popular among Punjabi and Bengali males, minority ethnic cultures are becoming integrated into mainsteam culture, such as in reggae, hip hop and rap music, as well as in dress and diets.
     • Study: Burdsey (2004) found evidence of the consumption of designer clothes, recreational drugs and other leisure activities among young British Asians that was previously assocaited with young white and black males.
     • People of all ethnic groups are drawing on a range of cultures to create either new hybrid identities (hybridization), or multiple identities. Ethnic identity is also becoming more confused by new, predominantly British born, ethnic minorities, with more children born to parents of inter-ethnic partnerships, involving a fusion of two ethnic groups.
     • Study: Bradford (2006) showed that the Mixed ethnic group in the UK included children of white and black Caribbean parents, white and Asian parents, and white and black African parents, as well as a number of other mixed identities. The majority of people who had a mixed ethnic identity had a white parent and were born in Britain. For such groups, it is difficult to establish whether they identify themselves as having a white ethnic identity drawn from one parent, an identity arising from ethnic minority group of the other parent, or a new hybrid identity drawing one both parental ethnic groups. from one parent
   • Ethnicity as resistance
     • Ethnicity as an identity has often been asserted as a way of resisting racism and disadvantage, especially among African-Caribbean youth, as Sewell (1996) found in anti-school male black subcultures as a response to racism at school, and among younger South Asians. By asserting an ethnic identity and drawing on the strenghts of their cultures, they can resist their denial of status and the devaluing of their own culture by racism. They may seek to reclaim their identity through, for example, embracing Rastafarianism (among balck youth), or Islam (as Jacobson found among young British Pakistanis) or other aspects derived from their cultures of origin.
   • Ethnic identities in Britain
     • Key terms: Ethnocentrism is a view of the world in which other cultures are seen through the eyes of one's own culture, with a dealuing of the others.
     • White identities
       • The identities of white British people in Britain are largely taken for granted, as much of British society and the main agencies of socialisation promote and favour white people and their culture. White British people do generally assert their identities as they have the power in society that minority ethnic groups lack, and do not face the racism, discrimination and devaluing of their culture that minority ethnic groups experience. The assertion of a White British is also associated with racism, and the sense that white people are superior to other ethnic groups. This is promoted by right-wing groups like the British national party, which seeks aggressively to promote a British and white identity based on a 'pure white Britishnes' that has probably never really existed, but which excludes other ethnic identities. It is also worth pointing out that 'white' is not an ethnic group with a shared culture, history and national identity. There are different cultural traditions and different
         • identities amongst the English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh and Polish communities in Britain, for example. Some white minority ethnic groups may also face discrimination and disadvantage. In the past, the Irish in Birtain suffered a lot of racism, and today recent immigrants from the European Union countires of Eastern Europe, like Romania and Bulgaria, often encounter racism from white British people.
     • African-caribbean identities
       • Study: Gilroy (1993,2002) believes there is no single black identity or black culture, but that the historical experience of slavery affects the perceptions of black people, and black identity and culture have roots in the 'Black Atlantic' - a cultural network and source of support to black people, spanning Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Britain, reflecting the diaspora of slavery and its legacy.
       • Study: Fuller (1980) among African-Caribbean grils in a London comprehensive school. Fuller saw this black anti-school subculture as a means for the girlsto resist and overcome negative stereotypying by teachers.
     • Asian identities
       • Key term: An arranged marriage is one which is arranged by the parents of the marriage partners, with a view to comptibility if background and status. More union between two families than between two people, and romantic love between the marriage partners is not necessarily present.
       • Key term: Islamophobia is an irrational fear and/ or hatred of or aversion to Islam, Muslims or Islamic culture.
       • Changing Asian identities
         • Study: Johal (1998) suggests there is evidence of the emergence of two new ethnic identities - British Asians and 'Brasians'.
       • 'Muslim' - a stigmatized identity?
         • Key term: Fundamentalism is a return to the literal meaning of religious texts and associated behaviour.
       • Study: Modood et al. (1994) carried out a study using interviews and group discussions to explore what ethnic identity meant to people of Caribbean or South Asian origin. The author suggest that the identity of the various Asian groups is defined in terms of their differnt cultures, languages and religions.
   • The largest ethnic group in Britain being White British, though the concept of ethnicity is generally used in everyday life in connection with minority ethnic groups, such as African-Caribbean, Indian Asian, Chinese and Polish ethnic groups in Britain.